The King Must Die

Plot

Theseus, now an adult, recounts his own life story. He grew up in Troizen as the son of a priestess and an unknown father, though people whispered that his father might be Poseidon. When he was very young, he witnessed the ritual sacrifice of the King Horse, an animal he admired as noble. His grandfather, King Pittheus, told him that in ancient times the king was killed alongside the horse, and that even now a true Hellene king might have to give his own life for his people.

During that sacrifice, Theseus first heard a surging sea-sound in his ears, a sign that an earthquake was coming. In the years that followed, he served at Poseidon’s temple. Whenever Cretan ships arrived to take young people as tribute for the bull dancing in Crete, he was sent to hide in the hills. Theseus felt frustrated because he was shorter and lighter than most Hellenes his age, but he became a skilled wrestler by relying on strategy and agility instead of brute strength.

At seventeen, his mother led him to the sacred Grove of Zeus in the hills. She explained that his father had made her swear not to reveal his identity until Theseus could lift a certain heavy stone. Using a lever, he managed to move it and found a sword and sandals underneath. His grandfather then told him he was the only son and heir of King Aigeus of Athens.

Book Two: Eleusis

Theseus chose to travel to Athens by the dangerous land route through the Isthmus of Corinth, which was infested with bandits. In Eleusis, a non-Hellene society ruled by women and devoted to the Earth mother goddess, the custom was to sacrifice their king every year. When Theseus entered Eleusis, he was chosen to kill the current year-king, Kerkyon, and take his place. He quickly discovered that the Queen held the real power and that as king he had no authority and would be killed in a year.

To build independence and loyalty among his guard of Eleusinian youths, he took them on hunts, killing the great sow Phaia and waging war on brigands. The Queen, suspecting that Theseus planned to overthrow the established order, tried to have him assassinated but failed. During a suicide attempt, she was bitten by a venomous snake. Theseus let her leave Eleusis, apparently to die, though he later admitted he never learned what became of her.

Characters

Theseus, the protagonist, is the King of Eleusis and the son of King Aigeus of Athens. He is an aggressive leader with a volatile pride and a strong desire to change society and culture. Though small and lightly built, he makes up for it with quick thinking and agility. He believes his destiny is guided by the god Poseidon, and he can sense earthquakes, a disorienting ability he sees as a gift from that god.

For most of the novel, he is seventeen, and he is a capable warrior, hunter, bull-dancer, and lover. Ariadne is the beautiful young daughter of King Minos. As the rightful High Priestess, the native Cretans worship her as a living goddess. She begins as gentle and shy, but falls in love with Theseus and assists him in fleeing Crete.

When Theseus witnesses her hidden violent streak, which he attributes to the corrupt blood of her decaying royal family, he is repulsed and stops loving her. He abandons her on the island of Dia, where she later dies giving birth in the sequel "Bull From the Sea." Asterion, the Minotauros, is the heir to King Minos of Crete, though he is actually the child of an affair between the queen and an Assyrian bull-dancer. He is crude, ruthless, and clever, and has managed to isolate his dying, nominal father, Minos, while positioning himself for the throne.

He considers Theseus a savage from the mainland, but because he wants only the best, he buys the Eleusian leader as a bull-dancer, much as he might purchase a fast, enduring horse. Minos is the title for the rulers of Minoan Crete, a sophisticated civilization centered on the vast Knossos palace known as the Labyrinth. The last Minos, on the verge of a great earthquake that will destroy the Labyrinth, is a sick man losing power to his despised heir, Asterion.

He uses Ariadne as a go-between to form an alliance with Theseus. Aigeus, the King of Athens and Theseus's father, was once valiant and virile, but by the time Theseus meets him, he is in his fifties, tired, and cynical. His people are difficult, his nobles are strong, and he is exhausted from years of trying to keep peace and hold onto his power. Theseus respects Aigeus but cannot admire him because he is too cautious.

Aithra, the 33-year-old high priestess of Troizen, is Theseus's mother and the daughter of Pittheus. She feels a conflict between her natural love for her son and her duty as a servant of the Earth Goddess.

Adaptations and references

The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea were adapted into an 11-part BBC Radio 4 serial, entitled The King Must Die, broadcast from June through August 1983. Poul Anderson's novel The Dancer from Atlantis covers the same period, but from a pro-Cretan point of view, with Theseus as the book's villain. In Richard Adams's book Watership Down, the 25th chapter begins with an epigraph quoted from Renault's book. Suzanne Collins credited The King Must Die as one inspiration for The Hunger Games.

Did You Know?

• The book was lauded by critics, with Renault's believable historical setting being particularly well-received.
• Removing the fantastical elements of monsters and the appearances of gods, Renault constructed an archaeologically and anthropologically plausible story that might have developed into the myth.
• Other critics have viewed Renault's depiction of ancient Crete as based on flawed theories and taking significant imaginative liberties.